| Malus domestica Ben Davis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Cultivar | Ben Davis |
| Origin | unknown, USA, approx. 1800[1] |
Ben Davis is anapplecultivar. Typical size: width 74-80 mm, height 63-75 mm, stalk 19-23 mm.[2][3][4]
During the 19th century and early 20th century it was a popular commercial apple[1] due to the ruggedness and keeping qualities of the fruit. As packing and transportation techniques improved, the cultivar fell out of favor, replaced by others considered to have better flavor.[5] It was known to fruit growers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a "mortgage lifter" because it was a reliable producer and the fruit would not drop from the trees until very late in the season.
Stark Nurseries held a competition in 1892 to find an apple to replace the Ben Davis apple.[6] The winner was a red and yellow striped apple sent by Jesse Hiatt, a farmer inPeru, Iowa, who called it "Hawkeye" in honor ofhis home state.[7] Stark Nurseries bought the rights from Hiatt, renamed the variety "Stark Delicious", and beganpropagating it. Another apple tree, later named the 'Golden Delicious', was also marketed by Stark Nurseries after it was purchased from a farmer inClay County, West Virginia.[8] In 1914, the 'Delicious' became the 'Red Delicious' as aretronym.[9]
By mid-twentieth century the Ben Davis was mostly used as a process apple rather than a table apple, and orchards were replacing it with more popular varieties.
The cultivar is now very rare to nonexistent in the commercial trade. It is still grown in parts of California, Maine, and Pennsylvania.
The Ben Davis was crossbred with the'McIntosh' to create theCortland, which has been a very successful pie apple.
Similar cultivars known as Gano or Black Ben Davis (a.k.a. Black Ben) appeared in parts of the American South (notablyArkansas andVirginia) in the 1880s. They are said to be either seedlings of, or bud-mutation of Ben Davis, but the exact relationship is unknown.[1][10]
The myth-making in US horticulture that consigned Johnny Appleseed to caricature has coloured the background of the 20th century's most enduring apple.
The reliance on Red Delicious helped push Washington's apple industry to the edge in the late 1990s and into this decade. Depressed prices for Red Delicious, weaker foreign markets, and stiffer competition from abroad, including apple concentrate from China, contributed to major losses in the nation's apple industry, which mounted to $700 million in 2001, according to the U.S. Apple Association. The industry has recovered somewhat since then, in part because reduced harvests have buoyed prices.
